


Mountain Gods

by TooManyPsuedonyms



Series: Mobile Thoughts [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Blend of Personal and Real Mythos, M/M, One-Shot, Personification of Character Qualities, Philosophies, Some Sickness, Vague and Implied things, Would Have Been Longer, some mild gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 04:42:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13942836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyPsuedonyms/pseuds/TooManyPsuedonyms
Summary: Will makes a deal with Old God to bring his daughter back.





	Mountain Gods

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my phone in a weird fit of inspiration. 
> 
> It was originally going to be incredibly detailed for each task... but writing on your phone takes more time than you'd expect. My battery was about to die so I just cut to the chase... but it still sort of didn't end.
> 
> Either way. Please enjoy.

Will was not immune to death. He’d seen much of it before he was an adult. His life was one passed from kin to kin as something dark and diseased swept across his family line.

 

Will himself could feel an illness brewing hot and steady in his own brain, but he left it there. There was work to be done and he was the only one to do it.

 

He came across Abigail just before her father tried to kill her. She was a child, and he had held her in his arms, staving blood loss from her neck while a superior Officer called for backup. Will stayed with her in the ICU for days... and then, he adopted her. It was questionable, everyone said so, but they’d imprinted upon one another. Abigail needed a father, and Will, he needed hope. Stability. A family.

 

Will left the police department and set up to teach forensics and criminal-psych classes. He and Abigail took in stray dogs as a hobby, as extra income every now and again too.

 

That’s how they found out. Dogs could detect cancer faster than humans could.

 

Will buried Abigail just before her 18th birthday, and this was what did him in.

 

He went into the icy Appalachian Mountains—not eating for seventeen days and seventeen nights—starving until there was no moon in the sky.

 

In the dark, he waited. In the snow, he kneeled, breath shallow and tears frozen on his face. Though he felt no cold, felt nothing. Just waited.

 

Something rose from the river.

 

Nothing he could see in the blackness of the wild, in the barren winter night. There was nothing but a shiver, a parting of ice and shadow as something great and ancient stalked toward him. Will, even in his fevered mind, didn’t know why he was doing this... except... he’d lost so much already. What more was his soul?

 

“Hello, Will,” it said, smooth and foreign. Something that could imitate man, but, was not. Would never be.

 

“I want her _back_.”

 

Will’s voice was broken, raw. Blood poured through the cracks. Something pressed against the fissures, curious, hungry. “You do not know what you ask.”

 

“I don’t care. I... I can’t lose someone I love again. I can’t...” Will tried not to cry. The tracks from before were already welded to his cheeks.

 

“How selfish. You love her so much?”

 

“I do!” he insisted, eyes darting up to look at the creature—despite all the warnings he’d heard. Last minute, he stopped himself. All he glimpsed was a pair of high and shining antlers.

 

“I see...” it said, “But I do not believe you. You will perform a series of tasks for me.”

 

Will stuttered at first, as a dark hand brushed through his hair. Then he sighed, nodding.

 

“Good. Seventeen tasks for seventeen years. If you do them, with your whole heart, I might believe you. I may pull back the veil for your child.”

 

Will’s heart beat quick and light and the thought of his daughter, alive and well, able to love and grow and laugh again was enough to give him courage. “Alright. Alright. I can do that.”

 

“However... I warn you now, Dear Will, the tasks themselves are not payment. That will come later...” the creature was cryptic. Though, Will knew striking a deal with something too much like the devil had its cost. For Abigail, however, he was willing. He would do it.

 

“What is my first task?”

 

The creature chuckled—a rattling of something unearthly in the forest, a stench of something sickly sweet lingering in the dead air. “Survive the night.”

 

...

 

Will woke the next day in the hospital, tangled in a feeding tube, with morphine dripping into him. His old superior—Jack, now heading the FBI department for catching serial killers—had come to see him. To tell him off for allowing grief to get the best of him. To wander, at night, from his camping spot and get lost in most unforgiving place in America. Jack, though, had always held a sore spot for Will’s decision to adopt Abi and become a full-time teacher. Since her diagnosis, he’d been trying to recruit Will for field work.

 

Will stubbornly refused. Abigail had needed him then more than ever. Jack might be the type to bury himself in work while grieving—claiming to understand as his own wife was slowly dying herself—but Will wasn’t like that. He and his dogs stayed at Abigail’s bedside until the very end... and then some.

 

“Maybe this is a sign, Will,” Jack had said as Will looked at a new scar across his stomach. It seemed to smile at him. Some sort of park ranger or other found him gutted in the river. It was a miracle he survived. Jack tried to use it against him, it seemed. “We’re sorely underfunded and often stumped. You get into the head of monsters better than anyone. We need you, Will. _I_ need you.”

 

“Jack...” Will sighed, then winced as he moved too much in his discomfort of the topic. The man hit his morphine button for him.

 

“Just think about it. Without Abigail, you’ll need some sort of task to keep you sane,” Jack insisted. Will would have growled, but instead, began to slowly slip out of consciousness.

 

...

 

He awoke in the quiet of his home, disturbed. Not knowing quite why. Will curled into Abigail’s soft bed sheets—violets and creams that smelled like honey, like the forest. Like Abigail. Her stuffed Bambi plush with the chewed off leg clutched to his chest.

 

“Oh, Will. Good Will,” the darkness whispered. The bed dipped, “Do not pretend to sleep. I am here. I am come.”

 

“I... I survived.”

 

“And you will continue to...” it assured. A promise, or a warning, maybe. It raked its claw along Will’s abdomen.

 

“What next?” Will asked with a gulp. He tried not to shudder, and the creature moved its hand to the toy Will was desperately cradling.

 

“How fitting... this thing...”

 

“You know the story of—“

 

“I know many things. More importantly, I know the symbolism behind children who’ve lost everything.”

 

“Abigail didn’t—“

 

“I do not mean _your_ child.”

 

Will said nothing. The creature’s only hand had moved over Will’s, “Part with it. Your second task is to let go. Her scent fades every day. If you intend to have her back, I will need traces of her to follow in the other world.”

 

Will froze. He felt shaken to his core. This was the last place he had of Abigail. He could refuse... but the creature was right. If he continues to disturb her room, her things... even this small comfort would be gone.

 

He gave the plush to the creature.

 

The next night, he slept in his own bed. It was musty, stale. Too hard. The bed too big. Too lonely. Abigail would crawl, sometimes, into the covers when she had nightmares. When he had nightmares.

 

He dreamed of the forest, and of gleaming antlers, and though he should have been afraid, he found himself caught in a welcomed trap.

 

...

 

Jack continued to call. Will continued to ignore him. Instead, he focused on the dogs. They needed walks. They’d been cooped up inside for too long.

 

The trip around the property was a good deal longer than expected. A few of the pups were too excited and snagged into the underbrush. Even more just wildly racing and it took Will a considerable time to corral them all alone.

 

The house was dark. Dark and cold when he returned. The dogs slinked into corners, not tired, just cautious. Will did not turn on the lights. All that illuminated the area was the blinking of his answering machine. A shadow moved past the red glow. Will was paralyzed as the tall figure flicked in and out of his blurred sight.

 

“You refuse to work.”

 

“Abigail needs me.”

 

“Your child is dead.”

 

“I _know_ that!” Will exclaimed, frustrating peaking, “But it doesn’t change the fact that she still needs me!”

 

The creature slithered closer, and Will fought the urge to run. To get away from the predator. “Your child is dead. She needs for nothing. It is you who needs her...”

 

Will breathed harshly as something too sick and too sweet brushed against his cheek. He knew he should bite his tongue but... but—

 

“Does it matter, to you? My reasoning? I want her back. I want my daughter to grow up. She—She was too young to have been... to just be taken like that.”

 

The creature tilted its head, and the whole roomed seemed to warp, to move with it. The shadows breathed as it breathed. “You humans... you can manipulate all logic, all emotions, as you wish to win any argument. Constantly in battle with death.”

 

“We don’t have much choice,” Will mumbled.

 

The creature tilted its head the other way. “What do you mean?”

 

“We’re all going to die one day. We just hope we aren’t the last ones...” he says.

 

“That does not make sense. Do you not want to live?”

 

“... not without Abigail.”

 

“Hmm,” the hum is far less noise than music. There is movement as the atmosphere changes. “Then your third task is to live. Find a purpose in work. I will return again.”

 

...

 

The creature does return. Each task is drawn out, crueler and more real than the last. The creature appears to groom him for life. It asks him to move on, to grow, and Will sometimes finds himself arguing and snarking back...

 

But the tasks remain. Will remembers this is for Abigail. For his daughter.

 

Will would rather die most days, but the dark thing, the monster with the antlers, it makes him move and walk and talk and leave the comfort of his home. The stability of his sorrow. It makes him face demons of such human ilk that, eventually, he soon longs for the mysterious creature to return to him.

 

Sometimes, he feels it asks too much of him. The 16th task is one that takes him by surprise. “Make a meal,” it says, “Of meat and blood. Carve out the heart of something you love. Set your table, decorated with the bones, wash with your tears, and allow me to dine with you.”

 

It is by far the most surreal thing the darkness asked of him. Still. It gave him three days to prepare...

 

Will, at this point, only had Winston left. The other dogs long since taken in by friends or neighbors or lost in the woods after a particularly violent storm around task ten. Winston meant the world to him now. The only creature he could count on.

 

Will cried as he cut up the innocent pup. It didn’t deserve this. The things he loved did not deserve such bloody ends. He tried to remember Abigail’s smile. It was faint against the red back drop of his table. The fancy white linen embroidered with peonies and rose petals was stained forever. Ruined.

 

He took off the head to boil. He skinned the poor pup. He drained the blood into crystal glass ware—things Abigail insisted they have for the holidays—and arranged the table. Winston loved to play and sniff the wild berries on the property. He scattered them around an open rib cage. He placed dried dogwood flowers all around...

 

The heart, he left raw. Centered in the last living thing who cared for him whole hearted. Who lied, belly up in total trust, even as he shakily held the knife at his side.

 

Will lit black candles… and waited.

 

He let his tears wash his hands, sting the cuts that happened in the struggle. He should have used sedatives.

 

The creature’s eyes were a physical presence. “This is lovely, Will.”

 

He ate in silence.

 

Will closed his eyes as something slid across his neck. As something dark studied his face. The glasses he wore fell, shattered in the dark.

 

“Your last task, Will, is to let me devour you this night.”

 

What had Will left to lose?

 

His life?

 

God, _please_ , let it be his life next.

 

...

 

Will woke in the morning. Sore, stomach heavy, with his eyes too dry. His bed creaked as he slowly put his feet on the floor. His breath was too shallow, puffing white in the frosty air.

 

It had been a year. Too long. Too long without—

 

“Dad?”

 

Will startled, whipped his head to Abigail, standing uncertainly in the door. Her slippers dirty with a big scarf around her slim, scarred neck. Her dark hair cascading down, eyes big and bright. Looking as she did before... before she was so sick.

 

“Dad? I can’t find Winston. I think he got out last night and—“

 

Will burst into tears then, and Abi tried to console him. It was hard to explain he wasn’t upset about the dog anymore. She didn’t quite understand.

 

...

 

Will spent _nearly_ 18 happy months helping his daughter choose a school, find a job, open her first credit card. See her off on her first date...

 

And then, the headaches.

 

The fevers.

 

He tried to keep them from Abi.

 

She found out when he showed up, delirious, outside her campus. He’d wandered there in a fever dream. Felt he had to say goodbye. She and even Jack, pushed him into a doctor’s office. It took many a test later... but they finally discovered it.

 

A virus, in his brain. Incurable. Heredity. He would bake to death from the inside out. It explained his memory loss, his mood swings, his penchant for delusions...

 

“You kept talking about this dark thing that followed behind you, I—I’m scared, Dad.”

 

“... I... I didn’t want you to know. And I didn’t want to scare you. It’s not fair. I just got you back.”

 

“But, I haven’t gone anywhere,” Abigail insisted. Will nodded dumbly, toying with the IV in his wrist. The girl lightly pulled them away, “I never died, dad. Your brain was probably trying to make connections after your diagnosis. You’re just... confused.”

 

She clasped his hand tightly.

 

He said nothing. Just held on.

 

He remembered then, that he was warned payment would come later.

 

...

 

He demanded to go home. He didn’t want to be stuck in some colorless, sanitized white walled room. He’d rather wait his fate in the comfort of his own home. Will had things to do before the end. Abi would need something to keep her afloat... and Jack owed him, even if didn’t really know why.

 

...

 

It was dark, and moonless, as Will sat at his table. He could not catch his breath right... it was fine.

 

The creature kneeled before him, antlers choking him, encircling his neck.

 

“Hello, Will.”

 

“Hello again, my friend.”

 

“I do believe we are more than friends, Dear Will. Good Will...”

 

Will closed his eyes, tilting his head back as the creature rose. It loomed above him, cradling his face close in those night colored talons. Will was pale as death, breath lost in the sick, sweet stillness.

 

“Did you enjoy my gift...?”

 

“Is it a gift...? This is _payment_ now... isn’t it?” Will gasped out as many words as he could. The creature laughed.

 

“No, no. I am afraid you weren’t long for this world regardless. I found you time. Time to love and live for your precious child.”

 

“Y-You almost sound jealous...”

 

“I am.”

 

Will wheezed, breath and brain feeling too sticky. He placed his palms against the creature’s chest. There was no heartbeat. His own was sluggish at best. “T-Then I don’t... don’t understand...” Will blurring peered through ashen lashes. The creature hummed, running thumbs along the dew collected there.

 

“I think I do now... I think I understand why humans are so lost when they are alive. I cannot imagine living alone now...”

 

Will felt himself laugh, breath all but gone. “You’re alive...?”

 

“If I was not before...”

 

Will could barely make out eyes shining the shadows. Deep, dark, simmering. Like—like a delicacy. Blood and sugar and chocolate swirling together. It... it looked quite delicious.

 

“W-What do I... still owe you?”

 

The creature was silent for a moment. Will’s vision was going. His breath leaving him. The creature caught it between his lips. Swallowed it whole—soul hot, following like a broken river into its abysmal body.

 

“A kiss will do for now.”

 

...

 

Abigail never found Will. She couldn’t bury her father. There was nothing in their cabin-home in the forest. The doors and windows were locked—the table set for two, but no food. It smelled... sweet. Like her father burnt sugar before disappearing without a trace.

 

She went to his favorite fishing spot. Searched the campgrounds—even the hunting grounds.

 

But nothing.

 

Jack spent as long as the law allowed in a half-assed search for her father. Then, declared him legally dead. Abigail inherited a sum of money much too large for her father to have made on his teaching salary and dog-walking venture alone. However, Jack would say nothing on the matter.

 

Abigail, in remembrance, began a strange tradition. She did not know why... but about every year and a half—well, seventeen months actually—she’d take a vacation and go to the river high up the mountains. She’d catch fish and hunt deer.

 

She’d take the meat for later, cook the fish that night... but leave the antlers at a fireside closer to the riverbed... it was nearly always a moonless night when she did so.

 

It was a strange ritual she developed. Abigail never questioned it. Just sort of... did it. It was curious, but... comforting.

 

Abi sat in her tent, across the way was another group of people. One man was scoffing as his friend told some scary campfire story.

 

“I’m telling ya, Alan! It’s the truth! The Horned One will bring the dead to life!”

 

“Bah! Old Mountain Tales! You can’t believe them!” Alan insisted. Abigail tried not to eve’s drop but—

 

“No, no! I tell ya, go to the river, wait without food, and he’ll eventually come to you! He’s like... like a feasting kind of old god.”

 

“That’s dumb! Starvation makes people crazy, that’s all!” Alan continued.

 

“No! No! Makes you closer to the realm of shadows. To death, man! My ma did it. She went to him when her brother was tearing her up something fierce...!”

 

Both the men were loud, probably drunk, Abi decided. She felt no qualms about listening as their conversation carelessly carried toward her as the sun sank below the horizon.

 

“You said he brings the dead back—“

 

“Well. Yeah. For a price. She wanted her baby back—died in the womb, see? Uncle beat it out of her.”

 

“Wait, wait—“ Alan slurred, pointing at his friend, “You gonna tell me that ugly ass bastard sitting on your porch half the time actually had the ability to do anything other than drool?”

 

“Ma said she offered her brothers face and flesh just to get me back.”

 

“Alright, no! I call bullshit!”

 

“Why else you think we’re here, Alan? You’re company is nice an’ all, but I got thanks to give.”

 

Abigail stopped rolling out her sleeping bag. She shuffled to the edge of her tent and actively leaned closer to the arguing men.

 

“Nah! Wha? You silly sonouvabitch—that’s why we out here hunting boars and truffles?”

 

“Mmm-yup! Ma told me to just follow my instincts. I leave the meat and tusks and truffles at the river rope swing. You see an alter out here, ya leave it alone, ya hear, Alan?”

 

Alan laughed uproariously, “Now why the hell would I ever go and touch one o’ them nasty presents people leave behind for your Horned God.”

 

“Well... far as I know, it’s not just for him now.”

 

“ _Noooo_ , no. One damn mountain monster is enough—I don’t want to hear no more!”

 

Abigail had made it halfway into the next camp before she knew what made her move. Alan screamed when she popped through the berry bushes, but the other man looked expectant. He was at least a good ten years younger than her.

 

“I’d like to hear more of your stories... was this Horned thing... did it look like—“

 

“I’m sure you know what it looks like, Miss,” the young man said. He patted the log next to him, “I thought I may have seen you before. Paths don’t always cross, but it’s nice to meet another Wild Child.”

 

Abi said nothing, just listened to the man spin his strange stories long into the dark night. Long after the fire died. Long after Alan crawled into his tent for safety. The stars blinked above them—faraway candles in the dark, a purple ribbon of ink spilling across the sky.

 

When Abigail looked toward the river, she could have sworn she saw a pale figure slip out of the currents before darkness swallowed every present of the night whole.

 

“They’re calling him Good Will—“

 

Abigail swallowed audibly, thinking it was only a confidence, the name. Just a funny folklore tradition.

 

“That white thing in the night, between the trees. He’s pretty. You gotta appeal to his Good Will before he’ll listen to you...”

 

“Appeal how?”

 

“Hmmm. Depends, I guess. Likes dog-things. Dog hearts, dogwood, sometimes people full on leave strays. Uhhh... sometimes stuffed toys. Shiny things, like lures. Toy boats? I dunno what works exactly, since I haven’t tried to appeal to him.”

 

“No? Why not?” Abi asked, lounging back. The whole tale was too fantastical, too medieval to her. Mythical, almost.

 

The young man tapped at his chest, “Don’t love nothing enough to give up my own life. My ma fought too hard to give it to me. I think... when you’re like us—have walked between the shadows and the living—you don’t love like that. You can’t. Too hungry for life.”

 

“I see... like the Horned One was before, uh—“

 

“Yup. Before he met Good Will. Not too surprising, though, to me. See, I figure, even the darkness gets lonely. Wants someone too. Some kind of equal...” the young man nodded toward the tent with his sleeping companion, “Like Alan there. Can’t stand the night. Can’t stand the scary void of it. But look at us... our souls know. Don’t remember, but we know... when you’ve been loved as much as us, can’t fear the darkness anymore.”

 

Abigail hummed in thought.

 

“At least, I assumed your own ma might have told you something like that...”

 

“Didn’t have a mother—“ Abigail paused, the young man was staring at her curious now, “Well, obviously I was born to a set of parents but, uh, my dad adopted me. Saved me...”

 

Her companion chuckled, “Guess in more ways than ya ever even knew about, huh?”

 

“Maybe...”

 

“Well... you think you can love someone enough to ask for ‘em back?” he questioned.

 

She thought about it. About all her failed romances and friendships and every other incarnation of a relationship. She was too busy... well, living life. Traveling, studying, consuming every little thing in the world. Not quite to the point of hedonism... but, she didn’t think she loved anyone more than she loved every little thing about being alive and experiencing all that that meant... in fact, she remembers, even in the throes of her father’s empty nest syndrome, depression, and delirium of his final days... he insisted she live her life. Move on, and carry on. He said he wanted that for her. He loved her too much to hold her down.

 

“Maybe my father,” she finally said.

 

The companion looked over at the edge of the river, nodding to the strange shadow and light dancing along the icy ripples of the river’s surface.

 

“Dunno if he’ll trade after all the trouble of getting you back...”

 

“No,” Abigail supposed to herself, “If there is any truth to your tale, I don’t think the love I have for my father would be enough.”

 

No, her love could not be more than the love of such dark, immortal things...

 

She started leaving dog hearts speared through the antlers after that. Sometimes on moonless nights she imagined a dip on the corner of her bed and a featherlight kiss on her temple. She felt loved and did not fear the darkness. She would patiently wait for her time to return to it. Hopefully, Abigail would have a tale or two to tell when she could finally see her loving father again... well.

 

_Fathers’_ it would seem when she found mysterious gifts of tea sitting on her windowsill beside a long lost plush of a brown eyed doe.

 

...

 

“It’s about that time now, Dear Will...”

 

“So soon?”

 

“Yes. Feels like it was only yesterday we first met.”

 

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Feels much longer than yesterday.”

 

There was finally laughter and warmth in the darkness... waiting at the edge of night for one more person to join their table and feast upon the bounty of gifted hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
